I am the solicitor representing Maíria Cahill.
Her experience should be recognised for what it is.
The principle that justice must be seen to be done is not the platitude that frequent repetition would make of it. It is instead a genuine principle of the law, based on the proposition that society will see justice through one pair of eyes. Thus an essential element of a fair trial is that the accused, the witnesses and their peers have every cause to believe it to have been fair, and no reason to think otherwise.
This has not been the situation in Maíria Cahill’s case, through no fault of her own. She has not been given her proper place as a witness, and the recognition and protection she is entitled to.
This is exactly the position that my client found herself in on May 1st when she said, in her final statement to police: “It is extremely disappointing that 17 years after I was initially abused, 15 years after the start of the initial IRA ‘investigation’, and four years after putting my faith in the criminal justice system to obtain justice on my behalf, that I will not see justice done in a court of law, and nor will the defendants be held accountable for their crimes.”
In that final statement, to a detective constable, she sets out some of the reasons for her eventual withdrawal of support for the prosecution in this case. Those reasons will no doubt be the subject of the investigation by Sir Keir Starmer QC, who, we understand, is presently finalising the terms of reference of his review, as announced by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. Moreover, there is an additional investigation by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland into Maíria Cahill’s legitimate complaints as a victim and witness.
Legal avenues
Those found not guilty of the allegations made against them by my client still have any number of legal avenues open to them. They have complained about the contents of a BBC
Spotlight
programme and about “trial by media” generally, and they can, of course, sue those they accuse of libel in the media and, indeed, my client, if they really want the truth to come out.
We understand that the former accused believe that the prosecution was politically motivated. Again, that will be a subject for the Starmer review. What is of real significance is that Maíria Cahill believes she has been grievously let down by the PSNI and by the Public Prosecution Service.
No doubt the Starmer review will scrutinise the exact rationale for having the cases about historic allegations of IRA membership dealt with before the trial relating to the rape and sexual assaults involving Máiria Cahill.
Surely society must accept that the allegations of rape and abuse are of significantly greater importance than those relating to historic IRA membership charges? Is it that there is some tactical, evidential reason that would have sufficiently justified this approach? Or perhaps there may be new evidence of further political influence which caused the delays in these prosecutions? These questions are for the review to decide.
The sad thing is that the rule of law has now been undermined. The late solicitor Paddy McGrory, who was respected throughout the North as a civil libertarian and was the first solicitor to employ me as an apprentice, referred in his Field Day pamphlet, Law and the Constitution: Present Discontents (1986), to Northern Ireland's "misshapen constitutional frame, [where] the delicate fabric of law was stretched".
The melancholy aspect of this remark upon the present situation is obvious.
Many victims
There have been many victims in the Maíria Cahill case so far. The first of them is the rule of law, which was subverted when the republican movement involved itself in “investigation” of cases of abuse, and which was further undermined by the failure of the State and its agencies to bring the abusers to justice.
Another victim, of course, is Maíria Cahill herself, and she reserves her own right to legally challenge those who have defamed and besmirched her good character in any way.
Any diminution of fairness and even-handedness in the processes of the courts impoverishes everyone, or as the trade union leader James Larkin liked to put it: “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
Joe Rice is the principal solicitor at John J Rice and Co Solicitors, with offices in Belfast, Newtownards and Armagh